Exploring the monetary and political
systems that harness and distribute
natural resources, we considered not
only the situations in Austin and Bolivia
(at difference scales and time) but
also examined work in films: Syriana
(2005), Lessons of Darkness (1992),
Emerald Forest (1985), and Repo
Man (1984). From these examples
of consequences resulting from the
symbiotic relationship between big
business and big government, we
then abstracted this nature to a set
of rules and modeled it using Maya
software with parameters of growth
and constraint. We understand the
nature of these systems to be viruslike,
depleting an areaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resources and
moving to another.
In our approach, we have accepted
capitalism as our new global theology,
affording a particular lifestyle vis-Ă vis the efficient reallocation of natural
resources. Commodities exchanges
provide an efficient method for
reallocating the capital and cash
across global markets, according
to the forces of supply and demand.
These exchanges build on the
infrastructure, credit, and settlement
networks already established by
global industries in order to provide
liquidity to all types of products (from
tangible products such as food goods
to intangibles such as stocks and
derivatives).
Products and services have been
traded on markets of varying scale
and with varying degrees of success.
Issues that present major difficulty
for creators of such institutions are
standardization (products must be
standardized, parceled, and sold
as specific unit types) and delivery
(trading commodities is no different
than trading any other physical
1 Structure and Silos
UlTRAFIlTRATIoN

LAndsCAPEs of WATER
Paola Viganò
The projects I will discuss are related to several research and design experiences concerning water infrastructure. Led in different
contexts, they have been the occasion to
bring together ideas, positions, topics, key
issues, and design approaches that slowly
construct a common experience of Europe’s
physical landscape as a research field. This
first statement seems banal but it requires
taking a step back to reconsider the actual
condition of the European city and territory.

A second common idea is that we, architects, urbanists, and landscape architects,
have to respond to changes with pragmatic
and operable solutions. This research takes
some risks in considering the existence of
Europe’s landscape over time, which is crucial in reading and working at the scale of the
territory and also crucial when reflecting on
the deep mutations of its basic infrastructural
support. The effort shows that time is not
working against design activity but is one of
its most important components, and that we
cannot think of actualizing such transformations without broadening not only our spatial
but also our temporal horizon.

6

A third quite diffused idea, related to the former
one, is that to provide solutions is an activity
that does not require an elaborate theoretical
approach and that design operations in particular are only the application of knowledge
formulated and established in other contexts.
The design approach reveals to what extent,
when working on the water theme, we are
confronted with concepts, ideas, and scientific and technical paradigms, and finally with
ideologies, political projects that are historically and culturally based. To confront them,
we need to take a critical distance and reread them from a new, contemporary theoretical perspective, with the understanding
that changes in paradigms are occurring in
other disciplines: hydraulic and environmental engineers, for example, are today thinking

7

PROPOSAL CU 63

One common idea is that European urban
and territorial fabrics are almost concluded,
after a long story of progressive densification
and networking. These projects explore, on
the contrary, the great changes that will affect European territory in the future, starting
with problems related to water management,
agricultural reduction, and structural evolution. The themes are not any easier to handle
in the Italian state of Veneto than they are
in Holland or in other parts of Europe, and
many researchers are currently observing
them from different points of view. What is
sure is that Europe’s landscape is drastically
changing and is in need of new concepts
and visions.

2006 Brisbane

INTENSIFIED
INFRASTRUCTURE
Christina Tung +
Rodrigo Prieto
product, and goods must be ultimately
delivered safely and on time).
This project proposes an urban strategy
that ties together the dependent
synergies of various global industries
into a single water network. By having
one industry’s waste output become
another industry’s productive input,
we challenged the traditional water
paradigm through a stratification of
water purity and an intensification of
infrastructure.

1

In determining a site, the proximity of
the port and airport were considered
for their existing infrastructures. In
response to the decreasing amounts
of rainfall on Brisbane, we considered
future cloud-seeding locations that
could work in conjunction with the
airport. Where the optimal heights and
velocities of planes took place around
the site, we calculated the major
forces of the wind in the area. Because
much of Brisbane’s park and preserved
land has been taken over by industry,
we focused on the borders between
industry and recreation to determine
how our proposal could change the
urban morphology at the local and
urban scales. Our site was a constant
negotiation between park, water,
industry, topology, and climate. At the
thresholds, we hoped to discover a
place for an opportunity for change.
We envision bringing to Brisbane’s
harbor everything from a semiconductor
chip
manufacturing
plant,
pharmaceutical, synthetic gas, food
and beverage, and metals finishing,
to a single site where water types are
sorted, shared among opportunistically
driven partners and integrated back
into the urban fabric, sharing waters
with adjacent commercial, agricultural,
and public spaces. The impact of our
design in the face of today’s water
scarcity and driving technologies will
gradually emerge a new modality of
metropolitan order.

and acting differently than in the past, and a
new alliance is possible.
About Dispersion
The projects presented here deal with the
theme of requalification of a part of the Veneto Region —diffused, fragmented, and contaminated—starting with the complex system
of its water resources.
The territory of Veneto, like many contemporary locations, is a place of paratactic combinations of a great number of paradoxes.
It is a mutating territory, like many European
territories of dispersion, where significant
causes of crisis come to light that are modifying the character traits of the diffused city.
I am referring to the specific mix of housing
and industry in an extended territory, usually
involving people living in a single detached
house and working in a small enterprise. This
model of diffusion and of “development without fractures” (Fuà, Zacchia, 1983) has been
described in Italy both by economists, sociologists, geographers, and urbanists starting
from the end of the 1970s and especially
during the last 20 years (Indovina, 1990,
Secchi, 1991 and 2005).

PROPOSAL CU 65

The different paradoxes and elements of
crisis are deeply linked to the distinctive features of settlement dispersion, a long-term
phenomenon that has invested a great part
of the Veneto territory, within which specific
infrastructural configurations were defined:
for instance, the diffused networks of waterways and roads. Isotropy is among the most
intriguing feature: an almost utopian, egalitarian condition that is at the same time individualist, in which resources and opportunities
are uniformly and regularly distributed. Nevertheless, the isotropic territory reveals unsuspected rigidity, with themes of hierarchy and
difference. The same functional mix of small
productive complexes and housing, which is
typical of the incremental growth of the widely
dispersed micro-industries in Veneto, enters
into crisis when new mobility infrastructures
must be inserted: There the conflict with the
waters and the lower “sponge” of roads and
built fragments explodes.

3

4

A paradox of void spaces also emerges in
this territory, particularly the paradox of the
still vast agricultural lands, which, except for a
few instances, remain marginal from an economic viewpoint. Differently from other areas
of settlement dispersion like Flanders, where
the built areas reach percentages close to
60%, the Veneto plains cover important agricultural extensions that still represent the largest part of the territory. Despite this, and with
the exception of some strongly specialized
agricultural areas like those for chicory crops
or vineyards, the functional and symbolic role
of the agricultural landscape remains limited.